Friday letters: Weighing in on the climate

Copyright 2014: Houston Chronicle

Updated
8:16 pm CDT, Thursday, October 2, 2014

Credence

Regarding "Texas science books need a reality check" (Page B7, Wednesday), once again, the "argument" against the facts of climate change is presented as a false equivalent to the scientific consensus of the world's climatologists. It's a bit like giving flat-Earthers equal credence with those who know that the Earth is spherical.

Cherry-picking data is easy, but it would have helped if he had been honest and considered NASA's entire set of graphs showing mean temperature change over the last 100 years.

As a former science teacher, I cringe at the thought of students being fed ideological claptrap instead of the truth.

It's a good thing that most of the science teachers I know would never give in to that, no matter what a group of ideologues decides to print in a textbook.

Regarding "Parker vows city action against climate change" (Page A1, Sept. 23) and "Climate change debate belongs in textbooks" (Page B7, Wednesday), if global warming will be as catastrophic as some suggest, I have one question: Why has there been no warming of the globe for the last 17 years? Carbon dioxide has continued to increase and current carbon dioxide levels are the highest they have been in the last 150 years - yet no warming for the past 17 years!

All of the alarmist statements about global warming are based on numerical models. Numerical models are merely a hypothesis expressed in mathematical terms. For a hypothesis to be validated, it must be tested. Several recent tests show that none of nearly 100 different climate models currently in use duplicated the 17 year pause in warming - not one! If models can't produce accurate forecasts for 17 years, why should they be believed for projections out to 100 years? Perhaps the relationship between carbon dioxide and the global temperature that has been built into the models is not valid. If this is true, then the importance of carbon dioxide in determining the Earth's temperature is not nearly as important as we have been lead to believe.

Over the past 15 years, the U.S. has spent $150 billion on global warming, and this year's budget calls for another $18 billion. What do we have to show for all this spending - numerical models that can't make accurate forecasts for 17 years and numerous failed green energy projects (i.e. bankrupt Solyndra that cost U.S. taxpayers a half-billion dollars)?

The petrochemical industry is the cornerstone of the U.S. economy, and it would be seriously impacted by suggestions that are being considered. This is particularly true for Houston. Future policy decisions pertaining to global warming should be based on data and facts rather than flawed numerical models.

Let's take another look at the overall evidence related to climate changes published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. The Thomson Reuter's Web of Science, the premier research search platform, reveals only 1 in 1,000 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals that actually reject global warming. That is only 26 out of 25,182 evidence-based articles published.

The absolute majority of publishing scientists agree that the Earth is warming and that climate-warming trends are alarming, yet Isaac Orr still questions whether data and climate models are accurate completely ignoring the existing evidence. The exhaustive article search cited above was compiled by geologist James Powell who served on the National Science Board for 12 years, appointed by the President Reagan and George H.W. Bush.